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despair quotes

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“the habit of despair is worse than despair itself.” Albert Camus, The Plague
“Discomfort guides my tongue and bids me speak of nothing but despair.” William Shakespeare, Richard II
“what we call our despair is often only the painful eagerness of unfed hope.” George Eliot, Middlemarch
“It is not despair, for despair is only for those who see the end beyond all doubt. We do not.” J. R. R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
“There is prodigious strength . . . in sorrow and despair.” Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities
“Therefore it is that man dies in despair while the Spirit dies in ecstasy.” Honoré de Balzac, Séraphîta
“Despair has its own calms.” Bram Stoker, Dracula
“Despair is a narcotic. It lulls the mind into indifference.” Charlie Chaplin, Monsieur Verdoux
“He who despairs is in the wrong.” Victor Hugo, Les Misérables
“We cannot despair of humanity, since we are ourselves human beings.” Albert Einstein, The world as I see it
“There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair.” Martin Luther King, Jr., Letter from a Birmingham Jail
“Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.” C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
“I need to be alone. I need to ponder my shame and my despair in seclusion; I need the sunshine and the paving stones of the streets without companions, without conversation, face to face with myself, with only the music of my heart for company.” Henry Miller, Tropic of Cancer
“If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end: if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth—only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin with and, in the end, despair.” C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
“More than any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly.” Woody Allen, Side Effects
“But that happiness, no doubt, was a lie invented for the despair of all desire.” Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary
“Oft expectation fails, and most oft there where most it promises; and oft it hits where hope is coldest, and despair most fits.” William Shakespeare, All's Well That Ends Well
“She had put despair and fear aside, as if they were garments she did not choose to wear... but now she saw that she had donned them after all.” George R. R. Martin, A Game of Thrones
“But what a man does out of despair, is not necessarily a key to his character. I have always thought that the real key is in that which he seeks for his enjoyment.” Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged
“PATIENCE, n. A minor form of despair, disguised as a virtue.” Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary
“When I was beginning to despair, and it seemed there would be no end—it's come! She loves me!” Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina
“But he hated to be sober. It made him conscious of the people around him, of that air of struggle, of greedy ambition, of hope more sordid than despair, of incessant passage up or down, which in every metropolis is most in evidence through the...” F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Beautiful and Damned
“No reflection was to be allowed now: not one glance was to be cast back; not even one forward. Not one thought was to be given either to the past or the future. The first was a page so heavenly sweet—so deadly sad—that to read one line of it...” Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre
“Me miserable! which way shall I fly Infinite wrath, and infinite despair? Which way I fly is Hell; myself am Hell; And, in the lowest deep, a lower deep Still threatening to devour me opens wide, To which the Hell I suffer seems a Heaven.” John Milton, Paradise Lost
“The human heart . . . can contain only a certain quantity of despair. When the sponge is saturated, the sea may pass over it without causing a single drop more to enter it.” Victor Hugo, The Hunchback of Notre-Dame
“Hope is a lover's staff; walk hence with that and manage it against despairing thoughts.” William Shakespeare, The Two Gentlemen of Verona
“Oft hope is born, when all is forlorn.” J. R. R. Tolkien, The Return of the King
“it’s no good worrying about tomorrow. It probably won’t come.” J. R. R. Tolkien, The Return of the King
“the most dangerous creation of any society is that man who has nothing to lose.” James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time
“One hoped, and the other despaired: they chose their own lots, and were righteously doomed to endure them.” Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights
“there is no more dreadful punishment than futile and hopeless labor.” Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus
“When shoes and clothes and food, when even hope is gone, we'll have the rifle.” John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath
“Though provided with a large library, I'm frequently very dull at the Grange; take my books away, and I should be desperate!” Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights
“Call it not patience, Gaunt; it is despair:” William Shakespeare, Richard II

Related topics

sadness hope love loneliness character strength life death happiness wisdom truth fear religion pain humanity past books desire virtue patience

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William Shakespeare (4)
J. R. R. Tolkien (3)
Albert Camus (2)
C. S. Lewis (2)
Victor Hugo (2)
Emily Brontë (2)
Ayn Rand (1)
George R. R. Martin (1)
F. Scott Fitzgerald (1)
Leo Tolstoy (1)
Charles Dickens (1)
John Steinbeck (1)
George Eliot (1)
Albert Einstein (1)
Bram Stoker (1)
Henry Miller (1)
Ambrose Bierce (1)
Charlie Chaplin (1)
John Milton (1)
Gustave Flaubert (1)

Related sources

Mere Christianity (2)
Wuthering Heights (2)
The Return of the King (2)
Richard II (2)
The Plague (1)
Letter from a Birmingham Jail (1)
Atlas Shrugged (1)
The Myth of Sisyphus (1)
A Game of Thrones (1)
Jane Eyre (1)
The world as I see it (1)
Anna Karenina (1)
Middlemarch (1)
Dracula (1)
Paradise Lost (1)
The Fellowship of the Ring (1)
Madame Bovary (1)
Tropic of Cancer (1)
The Beautiful and Damned (1)
The Two Gentlemen of Verona (1)